Jean-Baptiste Lemire - Works and Legacy

Works and Legacy

He was a good professor, an excellent musician, and might we add, a gifted musician. Jean-Baptiste Lemire doesn't seem to have started composing until some time after the day when he was first appointed Chief of Fanfare. His catalog doesn't contain a large number of works, and there are no major pieces like symphonies or operas. However, his production is far from negligible. Jean-Baptiste Lemire composed only for that which he once called, "music of the open air," a kind that many consider minor, but a kind which he certainly knew well.

We do not want to launch a fruitless controversy, but we will say only that if music is merely for the elite, if it was only accessible to the wealthy and intelligent classes, to those that a long education had put all the secrets of the musical language, then music would fail in its main vocation which is above all a social art. Music's means of communication with the masses are numerous, and it would be absurd to disregard such a medium. All kinds of music, light or large, has its part, its position, its rank that it is "of the beautiful work." The kind of light music thanks to which Johann Strauss met such fame is not, one day, to make Jean-Baptiste Lemire famous too? The music of Lemire is in many ways similar to Strauss's.

Jean-Baptiste Lemire wrote marches, waltzes, polkas, scottisches - all the fashionable styles of his time - without forgetting the important "Pas Redoublés," where dancers divide into various formations, as in "Rubis sur l’ongle", pas redoublé for music d'Harmonie or fanfare (Paris 1906); a tour from energetic, to brilliant and even tender. For the transverse flute, his instrument, Jean-Baptiste composed some early works with piano accompaniment like "Solo pour flûte" (Lyon 1904), built on a succession of episodes of changing colorations; soon later with orchestral accompaniment as in "Erimel" (Lyon 1905) and "Le Bouvreuil" (Paris 1907), pieces of a great virtuosity. For the philharmonic orchestra, the list is long, including the agreeable "Acanthe Scottisch" (Lyon 1903), the vernal "Souvenir d’Alsace" (Valse, Lyon 1905), the straightforward and decided "Colmar Marche" (Lyon 1905), and the mischievous "Riri Polka."

Behind his Commandeur manner, Jean-Baptiste Lemire hides a great sensitivity and an affirming profession. He knew how to take advantage of the particular color of the military orchestra, associating or opposing the different families of instruments according to his taste. He knew how to impart his melodies with freshness and elegance. Sometimes their breadth is considered too conventional, with a simplicity of his structures and the harmonic relationships, but these fundamental traits are not uncommon in this kind of music. Finally, he privileged certain rhythms of which he retains strictness, other times versatility.